Helen, Help Me: What If You’re Dining with a Jerk?

We don’t always get to choose our dining companions. What’s the right move when you’re seated next to a boor at a restaurant to which you’d like to return? —Anonymous, Brooklyn

We have all dined with assholes; we all hope never to be the asshole with whom someone dines. It would take some exceptionally monstrous behavior to get someone blacklisted from a restaurant—let alone the rest of their party, too. But I’m with you when it comes to the embarrassment of boorishness by association. Just remember that your server is your ally—they’re almost certainly clocking your companion’s every inelegant gesture and churlish pronouncement, and a conspiratorial cringe or a well-timed eye roll can efficiently communicate that you disagree with said behavior and wish to be swallowed by the earth. (I once found myself seated across from a friend of a friend at a group dinner who was so loud and rude and imperious—and I was apparently so unsuccessful at keeping my misery off my face—that a captain intercepted me on my way back from the restroom and asked if I wouldn’t like to eat the next course in the kitchen.) If the situation is truly dire, just be direct: get up to powder your nose mid-meal, or, after paying the check, swing back inside (“Oh, no! I think I dropped an AirPod!”) and find your server. Say this: “I just want to apologize for what a dingus that guy is. Your patience with us has been amazing. I can’t wait to come back without him.”

I want to know about restaurant P.R. I find it hard to read between the lines: I recently dined at a place that a publication listed as one of the top fifty in the U.S., and it was terrible—the chef was drunk at the bar, and the kitchen staff could be heard saying that it was the worst place to work. How are we supposed to believe that these “pay to play”-hyped restaurants are good? —Anonymous

This is a big, messy, very good question. There are more ways than ever before to learn about new restaurants—not just via publications but through countless individual online creators and branded group efforts and mini-magazines and big video channels focussed on specific neighborhoods or particular cuisines or certain price ranges or whatever else. This ocean of content means that customers are directed with tidal force to this hot jazz bar or that unmissable smashburger counter or the No. 1 best fried-chicken joint or the only white-tablecloth tasting-menu restaurant actually worth the wait. Certainly, there is a lot of money swirling around this ecosystem, a lot of e-mails both requesting and offering coverage, and a lot of comped food being sent out from the kitchen. The F.T.C. requires that creators disclose freebies, but I think I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve seen a disclaimer or a hashtag doing so. It sometimes feels like everyone’s eating for free, and no one’s owning up to it—it’s no wonder a person might start to suspect that everything they’re encountering is secretly an ad. (This is probably a good place to mention that I don’t accept P.R. invitations from restaurants I’m considering covering, I make reservations under fake names, and The New Yorker pays for all my meals.)

P.R. can, sometimes, be a force for good in the restaurant world. There are lots of great places that, for all kinds of reasons, don’t have access to the sort of media attention that will get butts in seats. Signing with an agency (or investing in other forms of outreach) can get a business onto the radars of the people who write lists, make videos, and generally chronicle what’s new and cool in the restaurant world. At the same time, there are fewer old-school food critics than there used to be, by which I mean people who write about restaurants from a perspective of careful assessment—analyzing the good and the bad, and trying to place a restaurant in a broader landscape—rather than offering more straightforward, service-y recommendations. The pressures of digital media mean that even critics in that more traditional mode are often asked to participate in the listicle-industrial complex. But one of the beautiful things about criticism, to me, as a reader, is how it lets me build an intimate sort of relationship with a critic over time, becoming familiar with their likes and dislikes and biases, and learning to map their experiences against my own. This is, to me, the foundation on which to build the sort of trust that I think you are looking for, and it involves knowledge and calibration on the part of the reader: put in the work (I’m sorry, but it really does take a little work) and you’ll find the critics and sources whose judgment harmonizes with your own, whether they’re writing a full-fledged review or a top-whatever listicle.

Still, alas, in matters of food there’s no universal guarantee. Like attending live theatre, or going to a concert, part of the appeal of dining out is in the unpredictable immediacy of real life. You might get unlucky and visit a great place on the day a pipe has burst in the bathroom, so the servers are all irritable, or it’s the night that a line cook with magic hands no-shows and the sauces are all too salty, or you might hear a song on the playlist that reminds you of an awful ex, and even though the restaurant’s sound system is nearly drowned out by the clang and blatter of fifty people eating dinner you’re suddenly put into a foul mood. The chef could be drunk at the bar. The staff could be loudly complaining about how much they hate their jobs. Sure, maybe some wily P.R. person mustered an entire corps of writers and editors into a conspiracy. But maybe it’s an off night. Maybe the place just isn’t your style. At least it’s fun to complain.

At what point in the course of drinking a Martini should I eat the olive? —Emily H., Northampton, Massachusetts

Two-thirds of the way through. But you really ought to try getting your Martini with a twist. ♦